There have been a couple of threads recently that have been discussing the territories. AS someone who grew up watching and loving that era I thought a primer might be called for since most posters on the forum were not around in this important time of the sport. The territories basically grew up around media markets, and thrived off low cost/ highly rated television that the local stations loved because they could sell ads. Some of the territory shows dominated their ratings.

I will simply list the Major American territories (there were other smaller territories) and years of exsistence, list their operating area, and list some of the top stars (of course I will miss some of these but this is a start, feel free to add significant ones I missed). I realize you could probably find all this via wikipedia or other sites but here it is in one place, as a good primer for those interested in this era.

IWA (1978-1984): (Not truly a major territory, considered an outlaw promotion but very influential, and a good history read): Parts of Kentucky: Angelo and Lanny Poffo, Randy Savage, Ronnie Garvin, One Man Gang (then known as Crusher Bloomfield)

Some would call the AWA a territory, especially since it had only a couple of territories that recognized it's World Title. However most wrestling mags, and historians considered the AWA as a national company that split off the NWA in 1960, especially since the AWA booked shows all over the Western United States where they had television markets.